Pierced by Love

V.J.E

Closed off from love, I didn't need the pain

Once or twice was enough and it was all in vain

Time starts to pass, before you know it you're frozen

But something happened for the very first time with you

My heart melted to the ground, found something true

And everyone's looking round thinking I'm going crazy

But I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you

They try to pull me away, but they don't know the truth

My heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing

You cut me open and I

Keep bleeding

Keep, keep bleeding love

You cut me open

Trying hard not to hear, but they talk so loud

Their piercing sounds fill my ears, try to fill me with doubt

Yet I know that their goal is to keep me from falling

But nothing's greater than the risk that comes with your embrace

And in this world of loneliness, I see your face

Yet everyone around me thinks that I'm going crazy

Maybe, maybe

But I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you

They try to pull me away, but they don't know the truth

My heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing

You cut me open and I

Keep bleeding

Keep, keep bleeding love

You cut me open

And it's draining all of me

Though they find it hard to believe

I'll be wearing these scars for everyone to see

But I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you

They try to pull me away, but they don't know the truth

My heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing

You cut me open and I

Keep bleeding

Keep, keep bleeding love

- Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis

I am in the midst of realizing how much this song is my life. Yet, I am no longer living my own life as I did in former days, but truly it is the life of Christ being lived in me; for He first bled for love of me and so now I bleed for love of Him. Indeed, this is my only desire, to allow Christ to be manifested in me, incarnated in my person, so that just as His entire life was an act of worship to the Father, so too is my entire life made into an act of worship unto Him and His glory...

But I'll tell you straight up though, this bleeding heart no joke is BEYOND PAINFUL. There is no other way to explain how I feel than to compare it to my heart being stabbed with a lance repeatedly and then having my heart torn open, and stretched beyond reasonable capacity. And the more I reflect on this I think about how I felt before it all started and I realize that I had been feeling like gold in a furnace for quite sometime now. Clearly then, that was preparatory fire to make my heart of stone soft enough to be pierced now with this Lance of Love. 

When I am tempted to try and close up this heart wound, by putting up a wall against the Lance, or by numbing the pain by distracting myself from it, I am not at peace with myself and I simply cannot go on doing either. I actually begin to yearn for my heart to be pierced. I begin to remember that I freely have chosen to give my heart to my Love, and that for love of Him I do not wish to take it back from Him...so I must not go back on my word... and truly I don't mean to go back on my word. 

...so yeah, it really is true what the saints say: the pain is sweet; to suffer for my Love is pure joy... I could not and would not endure such pain if it were not for Love and if it were not for the fact that Love is worth it. HOW PARADOXICAL IS THAT!!! It doesn't make sense to us. We don't like pain. We run away from pain. But I promise you, this pain is VERY necessary.  

Why???

Because it causes three things to happen:

1) It removes all the junk inside your heart, all that nastiness and all those lies you think about yourself, all the misconceptions you have about others that you didn't even realize you thought you had because you thought you were omniscient and omnipresent and all that jazz, etc. 

All that stuff oozes out like poison being drawn out from a wound. You realize that you have been set free from chains that kept you in dark bondage, that kept you from realizing what true love is all about. 

2) It reveals you to yourself as a creature that was made with the capacity to infinitely receive others into your heart. Now that all that stuff that was in there before is gone, and as you continue to feel your heart being stretched past natural limits towards supernatural limits it is simultaneously filled with a countless number of souls to guard, to guide, to pray for, to love, to carry in solidarity. Their pain becomes your pain and you see yourself being more than just sympathetic or even empathetic but rather compassionate; your heart suffers with the hearts of others, for others, on their behalf. 

3) It makes you ready for what's next: God has great plans for us, plans for our joy and not for our despair. We must trust Him! He is good and His deeds are good! 

So yes, Leona is a true prophet in this song. Every single word in this song speaks truth. I invite you to mediate with these lyrics and I pray that you will not be afraid to allow your own heart to be pierced by Love.  God bless you. 

In the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, 

Sr. Yvelyne Bernard 

Second Year Novice